


In which Gil loses a fight against toxic masculinity

by Overlord_Bethany



Series: blundering onward [15]
Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: I tried not to give it that title but I am weak, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 18:09:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11926374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overlord_Bethany/pseuds/Overlord_Bethany
Summary: Not terribly surprising, is it?





	In which Gil loses a fight against toxic masculinity

Gil’s hand had gone a little numb. He flexed his fingers, but he doubted he could move his arm without waking Tarvek. He stared at the ceiling, listening to soft snores, feeling the comfortable weight against his side as it slowly strangled the blood flow from his hand. 

The light of the single lamp annoyed him. Of course Tarvek had to have a dead zone for his bedroom, inconveniencing Gil now with the inability to ask the Castle to shut off the light. He sighed, and Tarvek echoed it, settling into a deeper sleep. Gil stretched his fingers, squeezed his numb hand inward, pulled Tarvek closer against him. 

Tarvek’s fingers wriggled between the buttons of Gil’s shirt. Gil gasped, and then silently cursed himself that Tarvek’s touch could still surprise him like that. More than that, he cursed himself that he could not want this man without wanting to leave marks on him. 

Oh, he knew it shouldn’t matter. He knew all the usual reassurances. Tarvek enjoyed the biting and the bruising. Tarvek did not care that Gil felt the delicious caress of those searching fingers and wanted to squeeze them, crush them, bend them until they crunched out of joint. He’d put them back, of course he would, but none of that was the point. In this one way, Tarvek affected him more than Agatha did, and he wondered why. After so many months, he could no longer hypothesize that some lingering aggression from their difficult past drove him to such violent desire. Perhaps something in the fundamental differences between the two of them…

The way Tarvek expressed his emotions with such ease…

_I love you._

Gil flinched at the thought of trying to say those simple words on purpose. He had always had more of an inclination to demonstrate his feelings. Tarvek, on the other hand, preferred words and subtle, controlled actions, except in the case of the odd Grand Gesture. His eyes narrowing, Gil squeezed Tarvek against his side. 

“Is that what it is?” he grumbled. “Is flying with me some sort of Grand Gesture? Proving your…” Affection? Sentiment? Determination to stay regardless of all of Gil’s innumerable faults? …Love?

Gil ground his teeth against his inexplicable resistance to using the word. He felt it. He felt the warmth between them, the passion and the trust, affection and desire, need and tenderness. He begged himself to express what he felt, but the best he could manage was to move his hand in a firm caress down Tarvek’s side. He chided himself for his reticence, and he withdrew a little further from just saying it.

“Stop that.”

Gil looked and saw that Tarvek had opened one eye just a little. His hand froze. 

“No, not that. The overthinking.” Tarvek wriggled as though to encourage Gil’s hand to resume its path. “Don’t bother to deny it. You held your breath.”

“Your evidence is a bit thin.” He would have greater ammunition if he realized that Gil had not noticed Tarvek’s fingers working his shirt buttons open. Tarvek squirmed closer, intertwining their legs, confounding Gil all the more. 

“Nonsense. You don’t hold your breath for anything less than a quandary. Share?”

 _You make me feel things I should not feel._  Scoffing, Gil turned his face away. 

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Tarvek mumbled, still drowsy. He tucked his head against Gil’s shoulder. Caught in a waft of resin and spice, the heady fragrance of Tarvek’s hair oil, Gil turned back. 

“I’m trying.” That seemed to be all he said these days. “I just…”

“I know,” Tarvek said, saving Gil from choking on his words again. “You’re having a rough time dealing with how irresistible I am.”

“Irresistible has nothing to do with it!”

“That’s not a no.” Tarvek leaned back to give Gil a proper view of his smirk. 

“I still want to break you,” Gil snapped, too annoyed to hold back. “How’s that for irresistible?”

Tarvek’s head dropped back onto Gil’s shoulder. He lay still long enough for Gil to wonder whether he was processing the thought, planning his response, or merely falling asleep again. Then, at last, he sighed. “I don’t know why that bothers you so—”

“No,” Gil interrupted, urgent and angry and maybe even desperate. “Listen to me. I want to break you, and I don’t understand  _why_. Maybe just because I’m unstable. Maybe because I’m a little bit of a monster. Maybe so you can’t leave me without evidence that I once called you mine. I don’t know, but I know it’s not healthy!”

Tarvek slid a hand into Gil’s hair, pulling him close until their foreheads just touched. “My simple Gil,” he murmured. “I don’t understand how you don’t know it already, but you’ve left your fingerprints over my entire life. Without you, I never would have known what it meant to be good and noble and true.” With a groan, Tarvek threw himself back onto the bed in a rather melodramatic way. “Of course, that did make it hurt twice as much when you betrayed me. I’d thought you were better than that.”

“No, I was young and confused.” As confused as he felt now. “I thought—”

“You thought you would please your newfound father. You thought we would play at being enemies for a while, and it would be exciting, and then we would make up. You thought we would always be together.”

“Well…” Probably. 

“I’m no fool, Gil. When did you Break Through? Was it a whole week after you realized I wouldn’t be allowed back? Or did it take you longer than that?” When Gil failed to answer, Tarvek gave him a sidelong glance. “Do you even remember?”

Gil chewed on the thought. He remembered his crippling loneliness, remembered his desperation. Without Tarvek, he likely would not have known anything else, but… How long had he been alone again? “It… it hurt…” He struggled for the words, and they blocked his throat. 

“Yes, Gil.” Tarvek gave a long-suffering sigh. “Every time.”

Gil stared at him. It couldn’t really be so simple, could it? That in his passion he wanted to harm Tarvek as a response to the pain of losing him so many times? That couldn’t be true, and yet… It felt plausible. 

Tarvek stretched, a languid, sensual stretch that looked only a tiny bit contrived. Smiling a drowsy smile, he beckoned for Gil to come closer, to touch him. Gil hesitated. 

“You’re not going to break me.”

“You don’t know that I won’t.” But Gil scooted closer anyway. 

“Yes, I do.” Reaching for him, Tarvek clasped his hands behind Gil’s neck. “You always stop yourself before you go too far. Because you love me—no, don’t run away.” Tarvek’s grip tightened, holding Gil fast by the back of the head. “You know that I know you do.”

“Stop,” Gil managed past the panic rising within him, freezing in his chest and drying his mouth. Immediately, Tarvek’s grip loosened. “I can't…” 

Can’t what? Can’t say it? Can’t trust himself? 

Can’t risk losing Tarvek one more time?

Tarvek’s fingers wandered into his hair, soothing caresses on his scalp. “You don’t need to say anything,” he murmured.

“I want to!” Frustrated, Gil let his head fall onto Tarvek’s chest. He let Tarvek hold him, let his turbulent emotions wash over him. “It’s not fair.” Not fair that he could love so deeply, could feel loved in return, and still be completely inept at talking about it. 

“Your father really did a number on your head,” Tarvek grumbled, bitterness in his voice. The words stung, and Gil caught himself holding his breath again. 

“I don’t see how you should be immune,” he retorted, returning bitterness for bitterness. 

“That’s fair.” Tarvek’s fingers continued their movement through his hair. “Have you considered I may be healthier than you?”

Gil resisted the idea more out of habit than rational thought. “Don’t be absurd,” he said, knowing he should at least consider Tarvek’s words. Between the two of them, Tarvek was the more stable Spark. Tarvek had somehow absorbed all the horrors of his upbringing and emerged with a quiet strength and a bleakly philosophical attitude. And Tarvek knew how to fight for himself without leaving too much on the battlefield. Gil could not remember if he had never learned that skill, or if he had lost it somewhere along the way. Who could he even ask about that? Resigned, he sagged into Tarvek’s arms. 

“See, you’ve done it again,” Tarvek murmured against his hair. “I don’t know where you went in your head just now, but you’ve probably come to all the wrong conclusions.”

“How would you know?” Gil sulked. As much as it annoyed him when Tarvek knew him well enough almost to read his thoughts, he also found it a comfort. 

“Then what were you thinking?”

“More stable does not mean healthier,” Gil said, trying to steer the conversation back to where it had been.

Tarvek chuckled. “As reasonable a point as that may be, it would carry more weight if you didn’t sound so petulant about it.” He had worked one hand beneath Gil’s shirt, seeking the tense muscles in his back. “What were you really thinking?”

A growl rose in Gil’s throat, and Tarvek laughed. “I don’t like you at all,” Gil objected, only making him laugh more. 

“No, but you love me.” Grinning, Tarvek shifted a little beneath him, teasing. When Gil tried not to react, Tarvek persisted. “Don’t worry. I’ll continue saying it for you until you can manage for yourself.”

Something in the way he said it made Gil freeze. “What have you done?”

Tarvek laughed again, bright, short, and full of mischief. “I’ve been interpreting your emotional fumblings to Agatha since the siege—”

“Oh, no,” Gil groaned, burying his face against Tarvek’s shoulder. 

“You should thank me.”

“No…” Gil repeated, feeling his face burn crimson. “No, why would you even do that?”

“You’re kidding, right? You expected me to watch the two of you blunder in circles around each other, you half clueless and Agatha failing at sussing out what was wrong with you?” Tarvek sighed. “I couldn’t leave you to your idiocy. The two of you probably would have destroyed each other.”

Gil resisted conceding the point, a reasonable enough response. “What would you stand to gain?” he demanded instead. 

Tarvek scoffed. “Gil, look at me. I have achieved my heart’s desire. You and Agatha are both ridiculously in love with me. I have a place to call home, where I make memories that are full of warmth and color. My own are in no greater danger than their existence demands. So I ask you: what else is there?”

Gil tried to sit up, but Tarvek held him by the back of the neck. He frowned. “Am I imagining things, or have your needs grown simpler?”

“Once the first condition is met, everything else falls in line.”

Gil considered. “You’re actually content?” He struggled to picture Tarvek not driven by desires secret and inscrutable.

“Content? Gil, I—” Tarvek bit his lip. “Every day a little more,” he said, his voice hushed. He looked almost baffled at his own confession. “I never dared imagine my life could be like this.”

Tarvek looked a little to the side, not quite meeting Gil’s gaze, as though he thought he should feel ashamed at his enjoyment of his new life here. Gil watched him sort through his thoughts, and he ached for him.  _I love you_. “You’ve earned a little contentment.” Well. It was a good try. 

Tarvek’s face brightened into a grin. “I’d like to think so.” His fingers curled against Gil’s scalp, fingernails lightly scratching skin, raising goosebumps. “So have you,” he added, his voice softening.  

Gil tried not to flinch, fought his impulse to pull away. Tarvek’s hands held him fast. “I…”

“Love me?”

Not what he had planned to say, but… 

“Yes.” Gil allowed Tarvek to pull him down for a kiss. 

“Good,” Tarvek murmured against his lips. Another kiss, then: “Get some sleep,  _kochanek_.”

Gil considered arguing, briefly thought to call Tarvek terrible for teasing him. Instead, he reached toward the light, but it stood just beyond his fingertips. 

Tarvek snapped his fingers. The light went out. 

“I really hate you.”

Tarvek pulled him close, kissed him hard. “Not even a little bit,” he murmured against Gil’s lips. 

No, not even a little bit.

**Author's Note:**

> This is it. I have now finished copying my backlog of ficlets over here. All future updates will happen in real time, as I finish writing them. How often? Hah, well that depends on how stressful my life is. (More stress=more fanfic. Less stress=more writing a novel. Either way, I'm writing something, so I guess it works out?)


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